A Hamburger Today

Classic Chicken Salad from 'The Artisan Jewish Deli at Home'

Posted by Kate Williams, Nov 11, 2013

[Photograph: Caren Alpert]

A good chicken salad can be the backbone of many meals, and it's conveniently built from just a few pantry staples. Nick Zukin and Michael C. Zusman's version from The Artisan Jewish Deli at Home is a simple version, but made with deliberate care. Tender white meat chicken is poached in an onion broth before being shredded and tossed with celery, mayo, horseradish, and plenty of black pepper. In their cookbook, it gets piled high on their "diet" salad (recipe coming tomorrow), but it'd make a mean sandwich on two thick slices of bread.

Why I picked this recipe: Chicken salad is a great staple to have in your back pocket, and the backbone of the recipe can be applied to just about any leftover poultry.

What worked: The horseradish does wonders for lightening up the creamy salad—don't skip it.

What didn't: No problems here!

Suggested tweaks: There's no reason why you couldn't adapt this to make use of Thanksgiving turkey.